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Top Dutch club, Roda JC, have made a most bizarre offer to 16-year-old Flying Eagles defender, Dele Adeleye - lets prove how old you are and we will give you an offer you can't refuse.
Top Dutch club, Roda JC, have made a most bizarre offer to 16-year-old Flying Eagles defender, Dele Adeleye - lets prove how old you are and we will give you an offer you can't refuse.
KICK OFF has exclusively gathered here in Holland that Roda are willing to offer the 3SC central defender a super offer but only if he will make himself available to a bone test at a hospital in Holland to ascertain his true age.
The records provided by the Nigeria Football Association (NFA) show that the former Sunshine Stars defence strongman was born on Christmas day in 1988 and will therefore be only 17 in December. He was, therefore, the youngest member of the 21-man squad to the Fifa World Youth Championship in The Netherlands.
A top source informed KICK OFF, Thursday: "Roda have a very, very serious interest in Adeleye but at the same time, they wish to really know how old the player is so that this information will enable their technical staff to have a clear idea how long it will take to groom the player into a finished article.
"They, therefore, want him to come down to Holland, not for trials but to go straight to the hospital of their choice where a bone test would be conducted to provide his true age."
Another KICK OFF source revealed that Roda could splash as much as 300,000 euros on the defender.
Roda, who have also been linked with another Flying Eagles star Sani Kaita, have been most impressed with the performance of Adeleye in the heart of the Nigerian back four, since he kicked his first ball at the Under-20 tournament in the cliff-hanger quarterfinal against host nation Holland, incidentally, at their own stadium in Kerkrade.
Adeleye, who stood in for the injured Monday James, was outstanding, as he shut out the marauding Dutch attack in only his first game of the championship.
He then went on to post another solid performance in the semi-final against African rivals Morocco.
However, in the final his foul inside the box on danger man Lionel Messi gave Argentina a penalty and their big breakthrough in the championship game.
Experts informed KICK OFF that a bone test to ascertain a player's age is not recognised by Fifa and it does not give the exact age of such a player but rather a range of how old such a player could be.
A top FA official told KICK OFF that this schoolboy error by the Shooting Stars defender clearly showed how young and inexperienced the player really is.
Former Eagles star Tijjani Babangida has vigorously defended the ages of the Flying Eagles both in the media and the streets of Amsterdam.
Last week he was on the national television here, where he was again asked about the true ages of the Flying Eagles players particularly Taye Taiwo and Promise Isaac.
'Baba' told the television station: 'I can vouch for the ages of the players because most of them are from the national Under-17 team that I hosted to a barbecue in my house in Kaduna two years ago."
Two top Moroccan players had openly accused the Flying Eagles of age cheating before their semi-final clash in Kerkrade.